Browsing Tag: flickr

    Miscellany

    Fun = Seeing my Photos in Yahoo’s Weather App

    May 24, 2013

    My first photo showed up in the Yahoo Weather app a month ago, and now I’m up to 11 photos in their system. Some are winter pics, so those won’t show up for a while.

    But I’ve started seeing several of my contributions in the app for different local cities, like these:

    yahoo-weather-1

    yahoo-weather-2

    I still use the Weather Channel app as my main source of info because it can be awfully windy where we live, and that app has hour-by-hour wind speeds … and Yahoo doesn’t. šŸ™ But I do enjoy firing up the Yahoo app every day or two to see what photos are showing, both locally and in bigger cities like San Francisco, New York, etc.

    Cool idea for Yahoo to crowdsource these photos.

    Miscellany

    BAM! Already Got One Photo Approved for Yahoo’s Weather App

    April 22, 2013

    How’s this for a fast turnaround? Less than 24 hours after I submitted a couple dozen photos to Yahoo for possible inclusion in their new weather app, one has already been accepted!

    A little after 6:00 pm tonight, I got Flickrmail from Yahoo letting me know that one image I submitted didn’t meet the size requirements — and the fact that they’d already started reviewing my images made me wonder if any were approved.

    Sure enough, in the list of “Top Contributors” to the Project Weather group, it says that I have one photo in the group:

    yahoo-weather

    And when I clicked that “YOU” link, it shows just my image(s) that are in the group:

    yahoo-weather-2

    That’s a sunset photo from 2008 taken right here in West Richland. Cool! So hopefully someday (soon) I’ll see my own image in the Yahoo Weather app. And hopefully some of the others that I submitted will get picked, too.

    Miscellany

    How to Add Your Photos to Yahoo’s Weather App

    April 22, 2013

    Yahoo launched a new weather app last week, and it’s getting rave reviews. Pretty amazing, because there’s only so much you can do when it comes to presenting weather info, right?

    What Yahoo’s doing differently is crowdsourcing stunning photos from Flickr users. Here are a couple screenshots I took last night:

    yahoo-weather-app-photos

    Every image is credited to the photographer in the lower right, and that credit links to the photo page. (The credit is easier to see in the app than in my screenshots.) So, while Yahoo isn’t paying photographers for these images, they could be sending some nice traffic and exposure. And that leads to the obvious question:

    How Do I Get My Photos in Yahoo’s Weather App?

    1. Sign up for a Flickr account, or sign-in if you already have one.

    2. To have your photos considered, you have to be a member of the Project Weather group on Flickr. Join that group.

    3. Submit your best weather-related photos to the group. Your photos won’t automatically show up in the group. Yahoo has a team of moderators that reviews images for possible inclusion in the Yahoo Weather app.

    In addition, there are some photo-related guidelines you need to know about. These are detailed in a Welcome/Help message that’s posted in the group. The guidelines include:

    a) The photo should depict one of these weather conditions: Clear, Cloudy, Rain, Storm, Fog, Snow

    b) People shouldn’t be the focal point of the photo. If it has people, they shouldn’t be identifiable.

    c) Horizontal-shaped photos should be at least 1024px wide by 554 px high

    d) Vertical-shaped photos should be at least 680px wide by 1024px high

    e) Square photos should be at least 1024px by 1024px

    f) No borders, frames, timestamps, etc. Just clear, unadorned images.

    g) THIS IS IMPORTANT: Your photo has to be geotagged using Flickr’s map-tagging tool. That’s how they know the photo’s location.

    If you don’t geotag your images, you’ll get an error message like this when you try to submit it to the Project Weather group:

    weather-no

    As best I can tell, the title and description of your photo don’t matter. That amazing New York photo above, for example, is titled “Civilizzazione / Civilization” and, even though it mentions New York in the description, Yahoo gets the location from the geotagging, not the description.

    4. You’re done! Sit back and wait.

    Yahoo says you won’t be notified if they choose your photo. It’ll just show up in the Project Weather group someday (Yahoo says it should be reviewed within 30 days, but that group is getting popular so I think it’s going to be longer than that.) and you’ll see “Project Weather” listed on your photo page under the Groups section.

    More Tips for Yahoo Weather Photos

    As I said above, Yahoo is looking for photos of these six specific weather conditions:

    Clear, Cloudy, Rain, Storm, Fog, Snow

    Photos are also being assigned based on time of day. The Help page says

    The frequency at which your photo displays in the app depends on the number of photos in the group that reflect the same weather condition, location, and time of day as your photo.

    So if you geotag your photos, that takes care of the location. If you shoot photos of those six weather conditions, that helps your chances of getting your photos included. And then there’s the “time of day.” My guess is that Yahoo will be looking for photos that match these times of day:

    Sunrise, Morning/Daytime/Afternoon, Dusk/Sunset, Night

    But that’s a guess on my part; Yahoo doesn’t specifically call out how many times of day it uses. But the team is obviously reviewing each image and assigning it to show in the app at certain times of day.

    So that’s it. Pretty simple to submit. But maybe not easy to get your photos in the Yahoo Weather App. I’m not even going to bother submitting any Hawaii photos — I’m sure Yahoo will have a zillion to choose from. So I’ve mostly submitted photos from my hometown area, where there are likely less pics to choose from.

    Hopefully in a month or so, I’ll spot my photo(s) in the app and do another post about that!

    UPDATE: It didn’t take a month. It took less than 24 hours, as I wrote about here: BAM! Already Got One Photo Approved for Yahoo’s Weather App.

    flickr-3-free-months
    Miscellany

    Flickr’s 3 Free Months – Smart Move

    December 21, 2012

    Gotta say that Flickr is doing some nice things lately.

    A week or so ago, Flickr released a new iPhone app that people love — me included. It’s really terrific, a huge improvement over the previous version.

    Tonight, after seeing some tweets from Phil and others, I hopped over to Flickr’s website and found this waiting for me:

    flickr-3-free-months

    How sweet is that? A simple little gesture, hardly costs Yahoo anything at all, and yet it’s great PR especially coming in the same week that Instagram shot itself in the foot and suffered through some terrible PR and backlash from users.

    So, well played Flickr/Yahoo. Nice to see you making a comeback of sorts.

    Miscellany

    Interesting Flickr Survey

    December 9, 2012

    flickr-dotsFlickr just invited me to take a survey when I visited flickr.com tonight. With all the talk about Flickr’s future and Marissa Mayer taking over at Yahoo, how could I resist taking it?

    Despite a warning that the survey might take 15-20 minutes, I gave it a try. When I clicked the “Yes” button, I noticed that my Flickr ID was passed through to the survey — so Flickr would be able to tie my responses to my account. And then the first couple questions asked about my age, gender and even zip code. (I answered all of that honestly.)

    The survey asked how many photos I typically take in a given month (I said 60), and what devices I use — smartphones, DSLRs, point-and-shoot, etc. It also asked how I manage my photos:

    flickr-1

    There were a couple questions asking my opinion on photography in general — do I consider it “art”? Do I consider it my hobby? My passion?

    On that last question, I said NO … it’s not really a passion. I enjoy photography a lot, but it’s been several years since I could honestly say it’s a passion. And when I said NO (actually, on a scale of 1-4, I answered “2” as to how passionate I am), the survey abruptly came to an end.

    flickr-2

    That leaves me even more curious about the survey and where it was going.

    Anyone else get the chance to take the same survey??

    Miscellany

    7 Years on Flickr

    August 29, 2011

    While looking through some of my old photos on Flickr last night, I realized that I joined there seven years ago this week. My very first photo was a boring shot from Seattle Seahawks’ training camp up at Eastern Wash. Univ. in Cheney. I think that was the first year they moved camp to Cheney, and I had to go check it out. (In 1-2 future years, Sean joined me and we had a fun football daytrip.)

    So in the process of reminiscing, I decided to check out what Flickr says are my most popular photos. When I used to be a very heavy Flickr user and more active photographer, I kinda obsessed over this stuff. Not so much now. Still, fun to look back. Hope you’ll agree.

    Most Viewed Photo

    Multnomah Falls, Oregon

    I was doing something rare for me: a trip in the middle of winter. It was December 17, 2005, and I had to drive to Portland for the U2 concert two days later, and for @U2’s 10th birthday party.

    On the way, I paid my first visit to Multnomah Falls, and found it almost completely frozen — an amazing sight captured in this photo.

    Most Favorited Photo

    Amur Leopard

    Another photo from Portland — this is an Amur Leopard at the Oregon Zoo in Portland. It was laying only a few inches on the other side of the viewing window, which was pretty clean. So I put my camera right up against it and took this picture. Don’t know what it was staring at, but the cat never paid me any attention at all.

    Most Commented Photo

    Sun Kissed...

    I’m no photo expert, but here’s a little trick I know: Rather than shoot photos down at a pretty flower, get beneath it and shoot up. You’re almost always guaranteed a great photo, in part because it’s not something we always see.

    This daisy photo is from the flower bed of our next door neighbor. They weren’t home at the time (shhhhh!), so I kinda tiptoed in there, stuck the camera below the flowers and took about 20 photos. This was the best of the bunch.

    Most “Interesting” Photo

    Bono, "One" - Portland, Ore.

    Flickr has a mysterious thing called “interestingness” that combines views, favorites, comments and other activity — not just quantity, but also velocity and other things, I think. Anyway, Flickr says this is my most interesting photo. (It’s actually tied with the Amur leopard for most favorites, too.)

    And like two of the others, this was also taken in Portland! This was at the April 15, 2001 U2 concert at the Rose Garden. It was near the end of the show at the end of “One,” which Bono had dedicated to Joey Ramone (who died that day).

    I have this photo framed and on the wall in my office. It’s a scan of a print photo — digital cameras weren’t all the rage yet by that time, or at least I certainly didn’t have one. But I did have a spot right along the front row (thanks to sitting out in the general admission line for about 10 hours) and was lucky to capture an emotional moment forever.